A World Long Gone
by EveryoneForgetsBailey
Summary: What if Wheatley was human in Portal? Human!Wheatley helps Chell escape. Spoilers! Ending is slightly different. (Read more!)


**The Courtesy Call:**

Light streamed through the bedroom window, lighting up a tiny room. Chell opened her eyes groggily as a voice came over the speaker on the roof. "**Hello you have been in suspension for 50 days." "**Oh no," she thought. "Not the stupid exercises again." She was tired of being woken up every month just to get out of bed, do a few stretches, and then go back to sleep. It was all required for her health, mentally and physically.

"**Look down. Look up. Go over and stare at the art." **Buzzers sounded at the end of each of these exercises.

She did as she was told and as soon as she was finished, she headed over to the bed to fall back asleep for another month. "Great," She thought.

* * *

(MONTHS LATER)

"**Hello you have been in suspension for Nine, Nine, Nine, Nine…."**

Chell woke up to the bland voice on the speaker again. The room seemed darker and shadier, unlike the other times she woke up when it was sunny and bright, filled with life and color.

Now, everything seemed dark and lifeless. Loud knocks sounded on the door as another voice came through it, blocking out the speaker's messages.

"**Hello! Hello? Is anyone in there?" **the voice sounded frantic and rushed. **"Could you open the door please?" **Chell stood there for a moment, staring blankly at the door.**"Anytime? This is fairly urgent." **the voice sounded a bit more agitated.

She walked over to the door and opened it slowly. Not even halfway through the action, the door immediately swung opened. On the other side, there was a tall and lanky man with tousled blonde hair. He wore a white long sleeved shirt with a blue vest that matched his eyes.

Behind thick glasses with black frames there was a face that revealed that something was terribly wrong.

"**Ahhh! **He screeched. "**You look terrib-" **He seemed to have stopped himself there. "**Good. Looking quite good actually." **He tried to cover up the words from the first statement. "**Are you ok? Are you- D-Don't answer that. I'm actually sure you're fine. Plenty of time for you to recover."**

The voice came over the speaker, once again. "**Please prepare for emergency evacuation"**

"**Stay calm don't panic! Prepare, prepare." **He started to calm down a bit as he walked past her.

Chell was stunned at the sudden burst through.

"**Don't move I'm going to get us out of here."**

"Out of here?" she thought. "I tried everything to escape. I threw chairs at the windows, picking locks on the door, but there was no possible way to get out."

She saw the man scavenge around the room and toss a few things aside. He then stood straight up, as if he found what he was looking for, and pulled out a key. He then took a chair and stepped onto it.

There was a metal box on the roof that he fidgeted with. He poked and prodded the key around until the metal slab opened. He climbed up into the space above and slid it closed without another word said.

"Had that metal box always been up there?" many thoughts came across her mind as she tried to brush the oncoming questions aside.

The mans voice came from up above as she heard him slightly yell through the roof. "**You might want to hang on to something. Just a word of advice, totally up to you."**

Chell was confused. "Was he really going to get me out of here?" More questions rushed into her head.

There was a sudden jerk and she lost her balance. She wobbled to the side, but she gained back her footing. There were loud bangs and screeches outside. "What was he doing?"

"**You alright down there? Can you hear me? Hello?"**

She opened her mouth but there was no voice.

The rumbling of the room soon stopped and the hatch on the roof opened. He jumped down with a soft "thud" and stood in front of her with a serious face.

"**Most test subjects do experience some cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension. Now you've been under for… quite a lot longer, and it's not out of the question that you might have a very minor case of serious brain damage." **Chell didn't understand half of the words that came out of his mouth.

"Was he for real?" Chell fought with herself internally. "Should I listen to him or just ignore the fact that I'm stuck here with another human, probably the only human left, trying to help me escape." She got frustrated at how she couldn't respond or interact with him. It boggled her mind that her voice was gone. Was it because she hasn't used it in so long? Before, it seemed like she didn't need it. She just followed the instructions given to her at the test chambers.

"**But don't feel alarmed, alright?"**

"Was he still talking?"

"**Although, if you do feel alarmed, hold on to that feeling, because that is the proper reaction to being told you have brain damage."**

Chell could care less. She put her life in danger many times before. Why would it matter if she had brain damage? She knew she was going to be dead soon anyways.

His face contorted into concern. "**Do you understand what I'm saying at all? Does any of this make any sense? Just tell me "Yes"."**

Chell nodded her head and jumped up and down.

"**Okay what you're doing there is jumping. You just… you just jumped. But never mind. Say "Apple". "Aaaaaaaaapple". Simple word apple"**

Chells face became solemn. Couldn't he tell that she wasn't able to talk at the moment? She looked him up and down then she came across a nametag pinned to his shirt. **WHEATLEY **was written in big bold letters across the plastic.

As soon as she looked up at him, an alarm sounded.

"**You know what that's close enough. Just hold tight."** And at that. He climbed back into the space above the bed and shut the slab once again. The room shook, this time she kept her balance. The walls started to collapse inward along with the ceiling.

Wheatley was rambling on and asking questions to see if she was ok.

"If he still didn't know; I am mute." She thought slightly aggravated.

After he told her that he was in "hot water" she seemed to shut him out.

Chell quickly backed into the closet, away from the gapping hole in the room. More debris fell as they smashed into other boxes that seemed to have rooms identically decorated like hers. "How many people did they keep in here?"

"**Hold on! This is a bit tricky!"** he called out above the ruckus he was making. "**And of course nobody tells ME anything. Noooo. Why should they tell me anything?"**

"And he's rambling again" She rolled her eyes, but then Wheatley then said something that set off something in her mind.

"**Why should I be kept informed about the life of the ten thousand bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?" **he blurted with sarcasm.

Chell became shocked. "Ten THOUSAND?" She was soon second-guessing about putting her life in this mans hands. The place seemed deserted. How can he let ten thousand lives go to waste? Was she the only one left?

Loud crashes interrupted her thinking process.

"**Ok we need to get our stories straight, alright? If anyone asks—and no one is going to ask, don't worry—but if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked pretty much alive. Alright? Not dead."**

"Well who is going to ask? No one is alive, so why does it matter?" she thought sarcastically.

Wheatley's voice came once more. "**Okay almost there. On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks. There's a piece of equipment in there that we're going to need to get out of here. I think this is a docking station. Get ready."**

Before Chell could even get a glimpse of what he was doing, the room bashed against a large wall on the outside, making a large dent from where the two massive objects collided.

"**Good news!" **Wheatley's voice was enthusiastic. "**That is NOT a docking station. So there's one mystery solved. I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall. Could get a bit technical! Hold on!"**

"What does he mean?" Chell was having difficulty comprehending what Wheatley was doing, but like before, he was going to bash the wall again. She braced for impact, as it swung not only once, but twice at the wall before it crumbled far below.

There was an opening to where she could squeeze through and get to the other side.

Wheatley emerged from above and dropped down again. He brushed off his vest but he only succeeded in smudging the stains more into the fabric.

"**You are looking for a gun that makes holes."**

Chell looked at him questioningly.

"**Not bullet holes, but—well, you'll figure it out."**

'Was he talking about the portal gun?'

"**Um, you go on and look and I'll meet you up ahead."**

She cautiously walked past the tall blonde and Jumped down through the wreckage. When she jumped down again she crashed through a glass ceiling and into a familiar looking chamber. The voice on the speaker returned but she simply ignored it. She already knew what to do, but there was one question that she asked herself.

"Why did Wheatley not come with me? He could have simply brought me with him to the destination we were meeting each other at."

This was one question she was going to ask him when she got her voice back. If she ever did.


End file.
